We are getting close to starting construction on Diamond Mountain University's new Student Union! Next month, funding provided, we can start, and we're looking for volunteers who would like to help. This building has been designed with the goal of making life on campus more amenable and to help preserve the sanctity of our Temple by providing a space with a wide range of functions. Enclosed with two foot thick earthen walls will be a commercial grade kitchen, a dining room, storage, bathrooms, and a place to study, all sheltered beneath expansive adobe vaults.

We already have pledges and donations totaling $70,000, and of this we have spent $20,000 for architectural plans, permits, and other costs. It will take $55,000 to pour our foundation, raise the rammed earth walls, and pour the bond beam. This will also require a team of five dedicated volunteers for four weeks, working mainly on raising the walls. We need to match the pledge of $50,000 in order to complete the basic building.

With the walls raised, our next step is to stock adobe blocks for the construction of the vaults. If we choose to make adobes ourselves, $1,000 would get us started, though we would need about $4,000 in materials to complete the number of blocks that we need.

Come this Fall, we can be ready to start building the vaults with the help of Simone Swan and her masons. Volunteers from earthen building circles will be drawn on, as well as from our Diamond Mountain community. Please consider coming to help--it will be fun, and a lasting legacy to all of us, as well as generations of future Diamond Mountain students. This will be another step in making Diamond Mountain University a beautiful sanctuary for spiritual endeavors, serving students now and in times to come. Your donations will help to make this possible, your generosity will create spiritual and material abundance for loved ones and strangers alike. As part of this creative process we also invite you to give ten or fifteen minutes of your meditation, focused on a Buddha Paradise. See a perfect world take root in the desert of samsara. Then dedicate this effort to the healthy growth of Diamond Mountain and to the vision of service that we share.

Contact Bert Scott at bertscott2000@yahoo.com for information about volunteering on this
project.

Donations can be made in this section of the website or sent to Diamond
Mountain, PO Box 37, Bowie, AZ. 85605.

Student Union expenses (PDF) | Student Union income (PDF)

Budget Summary
Description Cost
Construction Documents	$25,000.00
Foundation	$12,520.00
Septic System	$7,750.00
Rammed Earth Walls	$38,955.00
Bond Beam	$3,641.10
Adobe Vaults	$34,792.00
Floor (Brick)	$7,846.00
Electrical	$10,000.00
Plumbing	$6,500.00
Doors & Windows	$16,400.00
Lighting & Fans	$6,319.94
Exterior Plaster	$6,000.00
Interior Finishing	$1,540.00
Kitchen Components	$19,129.00
Bathroom Components	$1,812.00
Lofts	$4,732.54
Sub-Total	$202,937.58
Contingency Fund (15%)	$30,440.64
Total	$233,378.22

Donations can be made online at this wesbite.